


Mad Boy's Love Song

by filia_noctis



Category: The Charioteer - Mary Renault
Genre: M/M, POV Minor Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-29
Updated: 2011-08-29
Packaged: 2018-02-28 03:21:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2717018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/filia_noctis/pseuds/filia_noctis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bunny plans to give Ralph a high tea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mad Boy's Love Song

He’d give Ralph a high tea.

He works on the kettle. He polishes fixtures. Tonight will be special. Tonight sirens will cease for a moment. As will their friends. He takes out the sandwiches. No crust. No crumbs. Only the delectable will do. Tonight he will see Ralph stop being tired. For once. For a while. Tonight will be the night of gaiety. Tonight he will remind _his_ Ralph of the beginning.

Tomorrow’s for the Alecs and Sandys and Bims and all the other nameless, faceless things littering his days. Tomorrow he’ll face them and smile smug and smile catty and smile victorious and watch them rind grind the sour tamarinds of an embittered breakfast. He will see them turn repulsive, ugly green and talk loud and laugh louder. The tea’s too strong. Perhaps. Would Ralph care for the fritters? The mess has sawdust served in tin cups. He knows he had done right to make a pretty room, a _bower_ for Ralph to come to. He knows Ralph is amused by his pretty tchotchkes though he pretends it’s too fancy to be nice.

The world’s tawdry and he’s _tired._ So, he’s sure, is Ralph. But their place is nice to come home to. Their place is pretty. It smothers Ralph perhaps. Wait. _Does_ it smother Ralph? _He_ knows he hates the scruffy wool, the shades of gray, the doric plinths of a tawdry place. And the dark. And the shivers in the broom cupboard. And the clutching on the doorknob while he got punished. Was it so bad to look at Smothers in the shower? A lifetime ago and he still isn’t sure. Smothers and Somebody else. Somebody he revered and stored gamecards of to feel the touch of a distant skin and worshipped in the cricket fields. He had ragged the fag who filled their pitchers every night. Incessantly. Funny. Even the names are lost.

He shakes his head vehemently. A caning in the Commons would have been fair. He didn’t know, didn’t think he wanted to know, that blood in dark airless broom cupboards could exist. He remembers the pain. He had punched his best friend, a secret-keeper of uneventful times two years later for telling him. He doesn’t mind now.

And Ralph thought of That Boy yet. Thought enough to clutch a random school play sword (he apparently never found the other, poor him!) and keep tawdry yellow photos of groups of boys looking like mannequins (so clean and powdered and _he_ the Queen!) in his journal. Stupid Boy! Stupid Ralph! Dumb Hazell! How dare they?

Ralph and his pride and his protection and his preference for simple things will see Bunny doesn’t need indulgence. He’s sure. Bunny can make up for all the scrapes of pity and protection and love ( _love_ , isn’t it? His and Ralph’s?). He can make Ralph forget. He WILL make That Boy, Odell, go away like Hazell. Poof!

The kettle screeches. The thought of Ralph—his frowning face—if he found out He reads his ‘personal papers’ , the brown notebook, suddenly amuses Him. He giggles. He will gift him a nice leather bound REAL journal as soon as the days get better. When He can tell. Maybe when they grow old He can plan them a dinner (flowers, ribbons, everything) and tell Ralph thank God He read, and pried so He could save up the best for Ralph (He loves Broadways. Can’t they have them here?). Ralph wouldn’t mind _._ He would flourish and flounce and Ralph would be amused but like it. Be endeared. Even after those years. And they would talk of the ridiculousness of Sandy’s parties, left _so_ long ago (because they wouldn’t really need to go back there soon after, would they?). And Alec would go away, and Odell will be lost again for ages already, then. He suddenly can’t wait to be old. So exhaustive, this.

Tonight a high tea in a bright room in a black world. He had always been so tired of the darkened panes. Purposes defeated, caved rooms with naked bulbs. _His_ had to be different. He looks around the room. He is jubilant. He looks at the clock. He fidgets. Hasn’t the doorbell rung quite a while ago? Shouldn’t Ralph have come down already?! Then, because He can’t wait, because He already wants that kiss, that look, that cover, because He has been wanting them for as long as He can remember, because it should have been Him, not Hazell, nor the Boy there for Ralph, for both of them (damn it all! That school. Yet.) and He thinks he’s lucky now ,luckier than them all, let them eat their hats and sigh, He has stolen their very best, it’s Him Ralph wants, He decides to ruin His surprise and fetch Ralph for tea. What a boy His Ralph is, really!

The stairway, God so dank! Their flat will be bright (He can see Ralph frown already, but He’ll make him give in, indulge again, a last). He is sure Ralph will never admit it, but secretly love it all the same, as long as He took the responsibility of the irresponsible one. So much for Sandy’s stories and sniggers about Alec’s birthday party! The ninny! He wishes him dead cheerfully as he turns the knob. _His_ Ralph. Wait. A different voice. But it feels like He’s living backwards on this stage. He knew it, He knew everything. Already. _"I was just looking at your pyjamas."_

Ah well.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the consequence of a long-standing stand-off with toujours_nigel, a.k.a, Blame her, it's all her fault; so there.


End file.
